Five Characteristics Of Sought-After Job Seekers

What is a sought-after job-seeker? A sought-after job seeker is someone who doesn't stay on the job market for long. A sought-after job seeker is someone who gets a job easily when he or she needs one.

Sought-after job seekers get scooped up because at every stage of their job search, they're communicating. They communicate their value to employers in their LinkedIn profile.

They communicate their specific interest in and experience with whatever Business Pain their target hiring managers are dealing with.

How can you become one of those people? Here are five critical things that successful job-seekers have going for them.

There's nothing standing between you and these five characteristics of highly-desirable job candidates. Can you begin cultivating a few of these five essentials right now?

Sought-After Job-Seekers Know Themselves

Marketable job-seekers don't apply for every job ad they see. They decide before their job search begins which jobs they're going to focus on. Then, they brand themselves to make it clear to hiring managers that they already understand what the manager is up against, and that they've succeeded in similar situations before.

That doesn't mean that these job-seekers stick to one function or job title. They know that lots of hiring managers need the same things: brains, energy, focus and enthusiasm. They pick a set of jobs to focus on in their job search so that they can convey their background in the most relevant way to the hiring managers they most want to reach.

They don't fill up their resume with lists of Skills, like this: "I have excellent communication, negotiation and administrative skills." That sentence is incredibly generic, doesn't mean anything in particular and makes a job-seeker sound like absolutely anybody. A marketable job seeker doesn't stoop to generalities. He or she might say something like this, instead:

My favorite assignment is to work with an angry customer and turn him them into an avid fan.

This person doesn't say, "I have skills." Who cares what skills you feel you have? We care about something else. Have you taken those skills down off the shelf and used them at work to good effect? If so, tell us that story!

Sought-After Job-Seekers Know Their Value

Lots of job-seekers think, "Well, that person will speak up for her value when she's job-hunting, but that's because she has the skills employers want." It's typically the opposite. People who know their value get better opportunities where can accumulate new skills. We grow muscles when we speak up, and standing up for your value as a job-seeker is one of the greatest ways there is to speak up!

The more you believe in yourself, the more easily employers will see your value, too. The more apologetic you are for the obscure bullet-point requirements you're missing in a job ad, the less significant you will be to the employer. Don't apologize! Those job-ad requirements may have little or nothing to do with the actual job.

Sought-After Job-Seekers Use Their Networks

No person is an island, and it's very difficult to get a great job -- much less navigate a career -- operating solo. Sought-after job-seekers never forget their networks. They keep in touch with their friends, former colleagues and other acquaintances, not just to get job leads but to help their friends with their issues, too.

Networking is an incredible muscle-builder and mojo-booster and a great way to find out about hiring managers in pain.

Sought-After Job-Seekers Make Their Own Rules

The old job search process is dead, as any frustrated and burned-out job-seeker can tell you. There has to be a better way to get a job than filling out endless, tedious online application forms, and luckily there is! You can get a job by becoming a consultant during your job search (and perhaps for the rest of your career) and getting a consulting business card.

You can give out the consulting business card to people you meet. There are lots more consulting engagements around than full-time jobs, and most of the consulting assignments aren't advertised. You'll figure out which managers have pain they need relief from by sending Pain Letters directly to the hiring manager's desk.

You'll circumvent the standard corporate job-application process when you do that, and that's a good thing! That system is broken beyond repair.

Successful job-seekers are people who know that a job search is a two-way street. A company is looking for a great employee and a job-seeker is looking for a great place to work. One side isn't more powerful than the other side is. If you believe that employers are mighty and you are nothing, that attitude will show itself clearly as you move through an interviewing pipeline -- and you'll end up getting treated like dirt in a job that doesn't deserve you.

The minute you believe in yourself, other people will pick up on your confidence. You can grow your confidence by spending time with your friends, writing in your journal about your job search, life and goals, and making time every day to do something you love. A job search is a chance for reinvention.

You get to decide what the rest of your life will be like. You get to design it. What kind of life and career do you envision for yourself? Give yourself permission to dream up the career you want -- then walk into it, one step at a time!